Corn on the farm! Whether you’re walking through a maze at the pumpkin patch, decorating with cornstalks, or painting with it, corn is everywhere at this time of the year! If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a stash of deer corn feed in your fall storage bins waiting to be played with. The bigger corn pieces were perfect for my preschoolers while we worked on counting past 10 (really past 13) and 1:1 correspondence with our corn cob counting math mats.
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The corn cob counting math mats were a spur of the moment idea that came to me during preschool one day. We have a corn sensory bin in the classroom that the class has been playing in. I grabbed some corn from the bin and drew my best corn on the cob with markers.
The corn dots on the math mats were dotted with our favorite art dotters (grab them here!). I spaced them apart enough so that my preschoolers’ fingers could easily place one piece of corn on each yellow dot.
My preschoolers were excited to fill each yellow dot with a piece of corn. They carefully placed each kernel.
I found it was easier for my 3 year-olds to fill the math mats with corn and then count the pieces as they cleared the corn off.
My own preschooler (who got to play at home!) preferred to count as she placed the corn. She’s a year older than the kids in the my class and no longer struggles getting from 13-20 when counting.
The great thing about the corn cob counting math mats can be altered to meet the needs in your classroom or with you child at home. All of the mats that I made had between 18 and 25 yellow dots on them. My goal right now with my preschoolers is to keep practicing the numbers 13-18 until more and more can master those tricky numbers!
This activity helps strengthen fine motor skills, practice 1:1 correspondence, and counting. It’s also a lot of fun! Add more to the activity by using individual trays and having your child sweep the corn into a pile after filling all the dots before playing again!
Fun, quick busy bags or table top independent learning centers are perfect to practice preschool skills! I am all into creating super cute printables (view them all here – you’ll love how low prep they are!), but sometimes you have to think quick and create your own homemade materials!
Books we read to go along with corn and the farm!
This looks like so much fun. I can’t wait to try it with my own 3 year old.
I hope your 3 year-old loves it too! 🙂
We just got them out in my classroom this week! I hope your 3 year-old loves the activity too!